Monday, August 30, 2004

STREET PHILOSOPHY #11: Why Miyazaki Was Smart, And Why MiramAxe Isn't
(Here we go! Old feature resurrected!)


No, I didn't spell the name of that movie distributer wrong. I meant it that way, and I'm gonna keep it that way. Don't get me wrong, I've always been happy with Miramax's track record for getting us cool little movies like "Swingers" and "Good Will Hunting". I was extra happy when they got us "Princess Mononoke" way back when. Indeed, Miramax and Dimension - two subsidiary companies under Disney - are doing quite well for themselves in regards to getting the rights to all the good little indie and foreign stuff. And, they have definitely been getting us a lot of older movies that most of us would otherwise never see . . . well, sorta . . .

Alright, back to Miyazaki for a second. Now, when Miramax said they wanted to buy the rights to his movies for distribution in North America, Miyazaki went "Sure, aboslutely! But . . ." Yeah, he made them promise that as long as they never changed the content of his films, he'd always sell to Miramax. Done deal. Hell, with "Princess Mononoke" Miramax STILL asked and tried to change things! Miyazaki said "no, no dice." And since then, Miramax has made millions on Miyazaki's anime films.

Now let's go a little further back. Let's take a case study of Jet Li's earlier movie "The Tai Chi Master". In the movie, Jet Li plays a former monk whose best friend joins the army and becomes sorta evil. Jet wins by learning Tai Chi and kicks all sorts of soft-fist ass. Great title, huh? So, why was it that when MiramAxe bought the rights to it seven years later, they retitled it to "Twin Warriors"?

Let's face it, MiramAxe is just run by incredibly illogical people. They go, "oh! We can get a great market of film and kick all sorts of ass!" and yet when the time comes, they go, "oh, people aren't gonna get this market of film . . . we better make it easier to understand!"

We're all anime fans here. We all know the difference between "Card Captor Sakura" and "Cardcaptors". I don't hate dubs now, but I hate it when people change or cut things FOR the dub. I'd like to think that most people realise that other countries speak different languages and have different cultures. That said, I'm quite happy with how I've come around to understanding how Japanese students bow to their teachers before and after class, how shrine visits are carried out, and why people are shouting "Itadakimasu!" It's something you just learn through watching it. So, why can't we learn the cultural bits about other places?

That said, MiramAxe is notorious for this. Most Chinese/Hong Kong films that go through them rarely come out untouched. More often than not, they get retitled, names get changed, and intense orchestrated tracks get changed to hard rap for fight scenes. Jokes get changed to things less funny, parts of movies are left out completely because they seem to be bad for pacing . . . . . there's no way around it, you're not getting what you think you are.

I could go on and on about this, but let's face it, this isn't just me. Lots and LOTS of sites out there with more bandwidth are doing the same, like MonkeyPeaches or These guys. This is a serious matter, guys! Big time.

Before I sign off, I wanna make another quick example. "Shaolin Soccer"! The movie came out in 2001, broke countless records all over Asia, and remains one of the funniest damn things I have seen my entire life. Shortly after that time, MiramAxe bought the rights to it and up until April, 2004 did crap all to get it to us. Dumbass ideas included an entire English dub to "canto-accent English"; changing the title from "Shaolin Soccer" to "Kung Fu Soccer"; cutting over 20 minutes of stuff that people otherwise wouldn't get (and in turn probably making lots of things not make sense); sitting on the movie for THREE years before finally releasing it in theaters; pushing its release date back and back and back; giving it a limited release to maybe about 100 theaters in North America.
"Shaolin Soccer" didn't do too well at the box offices here. Ya don't suppose it was because NO ONE COULD GET TO IT, huh? So yeah, a great movie with great appeal to MANY people missed out because MiramAxe apparently doesn't want us to realise that we're watching an asian movie.

Final point: "Hero" which came out the other night is an incredible film. It came out in 2002, and of course, MiramAxe bought it up really fast. It was winning awards all over the place, and was nominated for best foreign film in the Oscars of that year. Great time to really push this film in North America, ya figure? But no, they instead chose to sit on it like assbirds and pushed it back and back and back. Suddenly it was almost about to go straight to video. At one point they considered titling it "Jet Li's Hero". After all this, it friggin' took Quentin Tarantino to tell them that they HAD to release it. What does MiramAxe say? "Okay, we'll do it, BUT, you're gonna present it and take the rap for it."
Quentin, of course, went "sure."

Oho, Hero's kicking all sorts of ass in theaters right now. Go fig, dumbasses.


FINAL note: it's not just the asian films either, though they're my primary concern. Let's not forget when Peter Jackson originally went to MiramAxe for LotR. Aside from less budget and the whole "3 books into 2 movies" thing, this one suggestion always sits with me as to how MiramAxe is run by monkeys with diapers on:
"Kill off one of the hobbits early on."

'Tards . . . . . and for the record, I want all of you to see "Shaolin Soccer" in one form or another once you can. You won't be disappointed, I promise.
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